Biography

I was born in Apeldoorn, a city of more than 150,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands on 22 March 1963, and I still live in the same city. After a jolly and care-free time at elementary school and a troublesome time at secondary school, I attended night-time college during the years 1985-1990. I obtained an economic and administrative degree and I passed for preparatory school.

In September 1990 I started law school at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, where I specialized in criminal law and criminology. During my time at the University I researched women trafficking and organi­zed crime as a project with other students. The results of our re­search into the so­cial con­struc­tion of or­ganized crime has been published in 1994 in Hoe punitief is Ne­derland?, as part of the then 60th anniversary of the Willem Pompe Instituut voor Straf­rechtswe­tenschappen; the faculty group from which I obtained my law degree on 21 August 1995. My research De soci­ale con­structie van (sata­nisch) ri­tueel misbruik [The social con­struction of (satanic) ritual abuse] was nomina­ted for the Wil­lem Pompe Institute Prize 1996, which is awarded every second year by the Stich­ting ter bevordering van Straf­rechtelijk Onder­zoek U­trecht (Institution for the advancement of Criminological Research Utrecht).